Wednesday

PROVIDENCE — It was touch-and-go for Joe Sharkey, the Brown University sophomore who was viciously assaulted near the college campus last spring.

PROVIDENCE — It was touch-and-go for Joe Sharkey, the Brown University sophomore who was viciously assaulted near the college campus last spring.

The police and rescue personnel responded to a chaotic scene in the early morning hours of May 12 at Thayer and George streets on the city’s East Side. Sharkey, 21, had been punched in the face and had struck his head on the pavement.

The police found him unresponsive with his eyes wide open and blood pouring from his mouth.

“We were very concerned right from the very beginning whether he was going to make it or not,” he said. Oates said that it took about three or four days before investigators learned that Sharkey would survive.

Even so, he said, the police wondered whether the Brown student would suffer permanent brain injuries.

Now, more than three months later, Sharkey has made tremendous strides in his recovery and he plans on taking at least one class this fall at Brown.

Sharkey and his family, who live in Norwood, Mass., declined to sit down for an interview. His mother, Denise Sharkey, said that her son, a backup guard on the Brown basketball team, is doing much better.

“We all think the timing isn’t right [for an interview],” she said. “He’s doing well.”

Despite the family’s reluctance to talk, there is plenty of information on his progress online. “Joe’s Time” at CaringBridge.com has weekly updates on his surgeries, rehabilitation and recovery at Rhode Island Hospital and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. Currently, he is undergoing physical and cognitive therapy at home, twice a day, five days a week.

On Aug. 11, Sharkey stopped by the Pizzitola Memorial Sports Center for an elite basketball camp. TJ Sorrentine, an assistant coach, said that Sharkey had a “big scar” on the top of his head, but seemed back to normal as he mingled with his Brown teammates.

“Physically, he walks around fine,” Sorrentine said. “He’s still weak and he’s lost a lot of weight. But he looked great and knows everything that is going on.”

It certainly didn’t appear that way in mid-May. Providence police detectives spent several days trying to sort out exactly what happened before, during and after Sharkey was attacked at 2:23 a.m. The area on the south end of Thayer Street had been teeming with college students and young people who had just left nightclubs, bars and restaurants in the area.

The big break came on May 14, two days after the attack, when Detective Jason Simoneau got an arrest warrant for Tory R. Lussier, a reservist in the Marine Corps, who had spent time in Afghanistan. He also is a boxing-coach trainer at the Manchester (Conn.) Ring of Champions and played football at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.

According to a Providence police affidavit, there was a large disturbance on Thayer Street and Lussier began walking north toward Waterman Street. He passed Sharkey and “without warning and unprovoked” allegedly punched the Brown student in the face. He fell backward, off the sidewalk and struck his head on the pavement.

At the Providence police station, two Brown students, Katherine Mahoney, a member of the girls’ basketball team, and Wooyoung Moon reviewed police mugshots and identified Lussier as Sharkey’s assailant. He was arrested at his home outside of Hartford, Conn., and charged with felony assault in District Court in Providence.

He is free on bail and is scheduled to return to court on Oct. 4.

His lawyer, John J. Lombardi, of Providence, said that Lussier was acting in self defense.

About a week after Lussier’s arrest, the Providence police arrested Dillon “DJ” Ingham, 22, of Fulton, N.Y., a wrestler and former football player at Brown, and charged him with felony assault and simple assault. He is accused of attacking two of Lussier’s friends, Joseph Ryan, of North Providence, and Joseph Parrish, of Glocester.

Ryan told the Brown University police that he had been “sucker-punched.”

Providence Detective Capt. Michael E. Correia said that Ryan suffered serious facial injuries including a broken jaw and a fracture of the orbital bones that surround one of his eyes. Ingham was released on bail and is scheduled to return to court on Oct. 9.

Correia said that detectives have yet to interview Sharkey, but they plan on doing so in the coming weeks.

“It’s a terrible incident,” said Providence police Maj. David A. Lapatin. “It’s going to be hashed out in court. There are a lot of different stories.”

It has been a long three months for Sharkey. Police reports and his online diary note that he was on life support when he first entered Rhode Island Hospital on May 12. Two days later, he underwent three hours of surgery to relieve swelling around his brain. He also came down with pneumonia and remained on a ventilator for weeks in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

On May 21, his sister, Samantha wrote, “It’s finally a LITTLE easier to remain positive each day and believe Joe will fully recover. I look back to a week ago when things seriously seemed hopeless and almost sigh in relief. Today is the first day I did not cry when I saw him.”

Back home in Norwood, folks at the Lunch Box Deli posted signs on the window that read, “We Love You Joe! Get Well Soon!” At the hospital, a conga line of teammates and coaches from Northfield Mount Hermon, AAU teams and Brown visited regularly. Among them were Mike Marra, of Smithfield, a teammate at Northfield Mount Hermon who went on to play for Rick Pitino at Louisville.

During each visit, Sharkey was forced to wear a helmet to protect his head.

In early June, Sharkey was moved from Rhode Island to Spaulding Rehabilitation to work with a team that included a nurse, physiologist, physical therapist, occupational therapist and speech therapist. They witnessed a rapid improvement

The second weekend in June also was a milestone. That was the first time in nearly a month that Sharkey was allowed to eat normal food. He had “tiny bites of mashed potatoes,” pudding and small sips of apple juice. He didn’t have his first taste of solid food — shaved steak and a roll — until June 13, a month and a day after the assault.

In early July, Sharkey got to go home. He has been able to have dinner with friends, take walks on the beach and spend time at his family’s summer home on Cape Cod.

“This has without a doubt been the toughest two months of my entire life,” Sharkey wrote on his blog last month. “It truly warmed my heart every time someone saw me right after the injury, saw me again in the present, and held a bewildered look on their face at how much I’ve improved.”

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